Just Cupcakes at the Uniquely Yours Bridal Show
After an exhausting and fun night at the cocktail party comes the main event. Did I mention that I wore 6” heels the night before? Not such a great idea when you are normally wearing kitchen shoes all day. If feet can be swollen, mine were. Soooo I broke out my kitchen shoes for the show. Not pretty - well actually they really are!! I love these shoes and they are so me :-)
OK - I’m getting off topic. I have to say that I have absolutely the best staff. While being a great baker doesn’t require a degree, all of our bakers have degrees in pastry or culinary. We made our Valrhona Grand Marnier cupcake with Callebaut chocolate ganache, pink champagne cupcakes and our yummy vanilla bean almond. The girls outbaked themselves. The cupcakes were dense, light, moist and consistent in size and shape. They baked over 1000 perfect mini cupcakes. We carted everything off to the Norfolk Scope and began to setup. The display, I think, was pretty cool. It was everything I had hoped and planned it could be. I certainly hope you think so as well.
One area that we are expanding in is our displays. The display from the cocktail party, the flower tower (see below) and the cupcake dress are all available for rent at your next event! Anyway, it was so much fun and we met so many nice people. We certainly look forward to a busy event season.
Just Cupcakes + David Tutera
First just let me say that David Tutera is absolutely as terrific as he appears on television and couldn’t be more gracious. So that’s 2 for 2 for me; Johnny Cupcakes was the other. We were a vendor in the recent Uniquely Yours Bridal Showcase Cocktail Party and bridal show (more on that tomorrow). My girls at the shop couldn’t have been more excited about David (yes, we’re on a first name basis - he doesn’t know that though :-) and I have to be honest that I had to google him. Shocking, I know, but true. My Mom even knew he was! Then I dvr’d all of his shows and now I have a serious crush *gasp*
We did have a great display and featured our pink champagne cupcakes. Based on our popular vanilla vanilla cupcake, PC has a full cup of sparkling champagne (yes, we use the good stuff because we drink what’s left). We then create a yummy champagne buttercream with emulsified strawberries and sprinkle (liberally) with glitter and sanding sugar. It’s really light, not too sweet, and seriously yummy.
So, enjoy the pictures and get ready for the next post for show day and what we did for that!
ps - Did I mention that David can wear a suit like none other, just sayin’ :-)
Paying it forward with cupcakes :-)
I always look for that little Christmas “moment” or just one of those times that you can make someone else happy this time of year. I learned today was “pay it forward” so I decided to do it with cupcakes. I needed some chef pants and ran across the street to the uniform store. Sometimes I just drop off cupcakes at places, because I can :-), and so I grabbed a four pack and headed out the door. I went to the little shop and handed the elderly lady at the counter the cupcakes. She was so sweet about it and told her I have a cupcake shop and to just enjoy them. I went about my way, never thought anymore about it, found my pants and went up to pay. She leaned over and took my hand and said, “It’s so funny that you came in here, I have a very good friend whose birthday is today and she loves chocolate and I haven’t had the time to do anything special for her. As soon as we close, I’m going to go over there and we’ll share these tonight. Thank you so much.” *sniffle*
Moral of the story….there still time left today. Pay it forward with whatever you have :-)
Cupcakes for Everyone!
Certainly we feel that everyone should get to enjoy cupcakes all year long but during the holidays even more so. All of us at Just Cupcakes are passionate about baking, great ingredients and we only bake with the best! We all love the taste of our European butter, madagascar bourbon vanilla, Valhrona chocolate, our homemade marshmallows, the smell of roasted nuts…I could go on and on :-)
Anyway, during the holiday season we especially want to share that with others. As you know we make and sell only what is baked the same day. (No cupcakes get to hang out for the night.) Sure, stored properly, the next day they are delicious and I’ve been known to devour a carrot cupcake the next day, or two but that’s your choice. We just want to give our customers the freshest product that we can. Where is this heading? Well, what you may not be aware is that we happily donate any cupcakes that didn’t find a home to qualified nonprofit organizations or to butter-up Mr Alex, the shoe guy next door in case of emergencies.
If you have a nonprofit or work for one that has an event and would like to have cupcakes this holiday, or anytime, please let us know at hello@justcupcakes.net and let them eat cupcakes!
A Weekend of Wedding Cupcakes
I just realized that there are very few times that I get to publicly thank my crew. Simply put, these are some of the best bakers and pastry chef’s in Hampton Roads and passionate about baking. Our bakers [except for me] are professionally trained from CIV to the French Pasty School. Not that this is necessary to be a great baker but they’ve gotten me out of a few [maybe more] jams with their knowledge. Certainly we all stretched our creative muscle the weekend of 10-10-10. We almost ran 24 hour shifts with the staff coming in around the clock to get the tasks completed. While we pride ourselves on baking fresh daily from scratch there is still only so much an oven can bake and cake artists can decorate.
Wedding number 1 was amazing and fun. This is the first wedding that Just Cupcakes ever booked the first month that we opened in ‘09. The bride is a lovely nurse, marrying a great guy with a love of life and motorcycles. The Mom of the bride is one of my favorite people and I hope that I remember her patience when planning for my own someday. Attached are some of the results. Enjoy!
A Visit from the First Lady of Virginia
OK, I’m really fortunate to meet some really cool people but this was a really special visit and I admit being nervous. We had a visit from the fist lady of Virginia, Maureen McDonnell, former first lady Susan Allen and Terri Rigell, wife of Scott Rigell that’s running for a seat in congress. Pretty dynamic group of visitors to come to our shop and share a cupcake. We had a great chat about women in business and we developed a new cupcake out of it that we’ll have in November. I found them interesting and very interested in hearing about women in business. We had more in common than I ever thought and appreciated them sharing their war stories with me. And, I’m totally onboard with the First Lady’s initiative to use Virginia products and produce. So, look for our new Virginia Peanut cupcake with whipped chocolate ganache on the menu and VOTE on Nov. 2 ;-)
We’ll be giving away our patriotic minis tomorrow to everyone that comes in with the “I Voted” sticker tomorrow!!
Just Cupcakes loves King Neptune
An event that is near and dear to the hearts of most Virginia Beachians (yes, I know that’s not a word) is the Neptune Festival. The Neptune Festival is the time that we get to celebrate our sea heritage and basically party it up. There are parades, balls, sand castle building contests, art shows and food!!!! We are honored to be the Official Cupcake of the Neptune Festival! Our pink champagne cupcakes got to hang out with the King himself last week at a dinner that was truly fitting a king! I have yet to see any photos of King Neptune noshing on a cupcake so we hope he loves us too :-) We will be posting Neptune trivia on Thursday’s on our facebook page. Follow along to win a dozen cupcakes :-)
To learn more about the Neptune Festival, go to: www.neptunefestival.com
